Avengers, The (1963 series) #376

Having rejoined the Avengers, Crystal broods on her personal problems, recalling a recent adventure….

It began with a mercenary called the Janissary, hired to capture an Inhuman named Sporr, whose power is that he can reduplicate himself by binary fission, though the greater the number of duplicates, the weaker each one grows. Janissary uses a wide array of high-tech weapons to slaughter the duplicates and he hurls a gas bomb to stun Sporr, then casts a net over him to drag him away. The weakened Sporr hastily creates one last duplicate of himself to find help….

The Sporr duplicate makes his way to New York City and Avengers Mansion, seeking out Crystal of the Inhuman royal family, one of the few to thrive outside the Great Refuge. He finds her with her daughter Luna and taps on the window. She admits him and listens to his story. She hooks him up to life support in a Quinjet and takes off, trusting to his homing instincts to find his host body. It’s in the Andes Mountains that Sporr II, feels his other self. Crystal puts the Quinjet on autopilot and parts the rock of the mountain to discover a secret chamber….

Further inside, Janissary is tormenting Sporr, testing various bits of soldier gear he carries. He is rebuked by a woman scientist who had hired him to bring her some Inhumans for her project to synthesize Inhuman DNA and merge it with her own. Once the mercenary is gone, she hits the switch and the process begins….

Crystal encounter the Janissary outside and they fight, the mercenary employing his high-tech weaponry and Crystal responding with martial arts learned from Karnak. He hurls a gas bomb at her and she calls up a wind to waft the gas back at him—too hard and she fears she could have killed him. She enters the lab to discover Sporr and then the scientist emerges, calling herself Terrigene, and attacking Crystal. She boasts of creating an entire city of beings like herself and with her powers. Terrigene recognizes Crystal as an Inhuman who has chosen to live apart from the Great Refuge, an action she cannot understand. The mad scientist attacks, Crystal feels herself too weak to respond effectively until Terrigene shoots fire at her. Crys controls it and sends it back—but too hard, igniting her foe’s costume. Crys apologizes to Terrigen who asks her to leave, blaming herself for what happened and revealing that her new powers will melt away. Crys asks her why she has done all this. Terrigene confesses that her parents were both geneticists and she followed them into the science, drawn to human mutations; her work was censured and her parents were ashamed of her. So her plan was to create a new race of beings to be her new family, accepting her for what she was. She declines to leave with Crystal as she carries the weakened Sporr to the Quinjet. There, the two Sporrs merge and eventually return to the Great Refuge….

Crystal debates whether to return to the Great Refuge herself but her reverie is broken by Luna asking for a glass of water. Crystal realizes that no matter what happens, her daughter will have complete acceptance….